The EXP-Virus saga: Prologue.
Here it is the first chapter of my story series, "The EXP-Virus saga". There won't be much mention of either Lilo or Stitch in this fanfic as it is meant to set the story for the rest of the saga and introduce the characters that I made for the stories. I do not own Lilo & Stitch or the Timesplitters. The Timesplitters are owned by Eidos Interactive and Lilo and Stitch is owned by Disney. I do own characters, Matt, Akira and Lilo624. Special thanks to authors Terrifel, Hamishwarfare and Delta operator whose great stories inspired me to try and write one myself.
All caps shouting
Italics Thoughts
Chapter One: Ghost Ship
Location: Starcruiser Derelict, "U.S.S Honolulu", on route to Mars Disposal facility.
Time: 12 November, 3145AD.
Bridge of the "U.S.S Honolulu"
It had been 7 months since the "U.S.S Honolulu" was found and recovered by a deep space salvage team and finally it and the ghosts of its missing crew were being laid to rest. The only crew were a five man pilot team and a squad of marines, and Capt. Salnas was not a happy man. "Why the hell do we need marines onboard for a shakedown flight?" He exclaimed to the bridge in general. "It's something to do with the research labs on deck 7, sir." Said Ensign Overson. "Something the original crew found before they disappeared. Rumour was its some kind of bio-weapon that Pan Pacific Inc created before they got shut down." "Yeah, and their mutated bodies come out at night to eat peoples brains. Yeargh!" Joked Stevenson from the sensor console, doing a good impression of a zombie to the amusement of the rest of the bridge crew. Salnas allowed them to get on with it. There was precious little to do on these type of flights so any distraction was welcome.
Unfortunately, a distraction of the unwelcome sort came in the form of the voice of Captain Darleas issuing from the intercom. "Captain? Please tell your engineers to stop trying to hack the door code for Deck 7 labs or I will be forced to take steps."
Salnas's hand squeezed the arm of his command chair in silent anger as he replied in a stiff tone, "Yes, captain." Damn, busted again. How long before he realises that they are acting under orders. He thought. Everyone on the bridge suddenly looked up as a strange, scuttling noise came from one of the ventilation pipes that crisscrossed the ceiling. "Bloody space rats again." Muttered Stevenson from his console.
Deck 7 quarantine locks.
"Rick, I'm not too sure about this. What if the marines find us again?" said Akira, who was a small green, Clip-like experiment in charge of cutting loose cables and debris out of the way. Rick, who was feverishly working on the door lock to the containment doors paused to look at his friend and replied "Don't worry. They won't be back for hours yet. The shift change isn't for…" Rick was interrupted as the panel he was working on lit up and a female voice said. "Caution, opening containment doors! Caution, opening containment doors!" Red lights began to flash and klaxons blared warnings as the huge containment barrier lifted into the ceiling. Rick and Akira both peered into the gloom on the other side. Unknown to them, something stared back.
"Captain, this is Rick. I have opened the quarantine locks. Me and Akira are gonna check it out." Said Rick into his comm. Just as Rick went to turn it off, a movement in the dark of the newly opened deck caught his attention. As the things rushed him and Akira, he barely had time to scream.
Transmission from: Mars Starship Disposal Facility
To: Earth Space Command
All contact with inbound ship U.S.S Honolulu has been lost.
Current reason for loss of contact thought to be reactor breach resulting in loss of all hands.
Responce team to be dispatched in three months time due to fallout risk.
Transmission ends.
Two Months later
Out in space floated the U.S.S. Honolulu, missing for 600 years and now missing again All the portholes are black as the cosmos that the ship occupies…except for one where there is a strange blue glow.
Captains Quarters, U.S.S Honolulu
Deck 8
The blue glow seemed to come from everywhere at once. Occasionally, a blue bolt of lightning would earth itself. Eventually a shape began to quickly shimmer into view, taking the shape of a 19 year old boy. The boy's name is Matt. "Where am I…this time?" he murmured to himself. His attention was quickly brought back to the here and now by a crackling from a device strapped to his wrist. "Aw, no!" he cried and reached for the nearest container with water, a vase of flowers, and dumped it all over the device just as smoke began to billow from it. Matt thought about how he felt and said the next feeling that came to him. "Smeg."
Matt's POV
I looked around where I had ended up, and then looked at my temporal uplink. "Initiate self diagnostic." I said. "Diagnostic complete. Time crystal shard fractured. Seek replacement." Toned the uplink. Damn. I thought. Just the place to get a breakdown. "Well," I said, walking over to the console on the captain's desk and activating it. "At least there are no splitters here. Hmm, early 28th century, by the looks of things." I called up the ships cargo inventory. I didn't expect to find any crystals in stock as time research didn't start until the 30th century. I was in for a surprise. "Uplink parts? What are uplink parts doing here?" I exclaimed in surprise when I found them in the records. I was distracted by a scuttling noise from above. "Space rats." I muttered to myself. "Ahh. The parts are in the Deck 7 laboratories… YAAH!" The last part was because a green thing with scissors for hands rushed in, screaming, closely followed 2 orange koala-like creatures.
Normal POV
The koala creatures, ignoring Matt, tried to attack the one they were chasing (Largefish8: Yes, Akira survived and to all you Stitch fans out there, the creatures only look like Stitch by shape. They are pure evil), but quickly lost interest when a pulse blast from one of Matt's pulse handguns vaporised the first one. The second one dodged Matt's other shots with ease and ran out the room, pausing only to shout "MEEGA NALA QUEESTA AKIRA!" at the first thing which obviously saddened it a lot but only puzzled Matt. "Err, and the same to you?" Matt replied. He then looked properly at the creature he had saved. It came up to his ankle (I think that's how high Clip is in the series), had solid black eyes and had a blue bow on it head "Are you ok?" He asked. When it didn't answer Matt tried some other languages via the translator on his uplink (the uplink can't translate Turonian) but eventually gave up, shaking his head and saying to himself, "Poor thing. It's in shock."
"My name is Akira." Said a small female voice from behind Matt. He spun round in surprise. The green creature or Akira was looking right at him. "Have you got any food?" She asked. "Err, yeah but first answer me one question." Matt replied. "WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?" He yelled.
Five minutes later…
"So you're telling me there are more of these things running around. Great." Matt had just finished listening to Akira's story of what had happened to the crew. "Why didn't you use an escape pod and wait for a rescue team?"
"There is no rescue. The marines ejected all the escape pods and destroyed the emergency beacon." Akira replied. "Then they shot everyone else." She shuddered at that memory. "They, what? Why did they do that?" Matt said from the captain's desk where he was going through the research logs from deck 7. "Hey, what's this? Project: EXP." Akira came up and sat on the desk in front of the screen, looking at what Matt had pulled up. "Oh that. That's what the captain was so interested in. Its something that the previous owners of the ship were making before they got shut dow...mmph!" Matt had shoved his hand over her mouth before she could finish. There were footsteps outside the door. Then Matt heard a language he knew meant trouble. "Ta bondfro gino gasla." Splitters. "Shh." Matt said to Akira and slowly sneaked up to the door, pulled out his handgun and opened the door. The marine had his back to the door, but spun round at the sound of the door opening. He seemed normal but Matt knew better and just as the marine raised his gun, Matt raised his and squeezed the trigger. Akira ran up yelling, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" She stopped as the dead marine became a dead timesplitter instead. "What is that thing?"
"A timesplitter. This explains why the marines shot the rest of the salvage team. I wouldn't be surprised if they were the ones who opened the quarantine doors." Matt explained. "I need to find that time crystal shard and get out of here."
"Timesplitters? But they're extinct. They were extinct since before I was activated." Screamed Akira hysterically. Matt turned to look at her. "You wish." He said darkly.
Splitter Strike team 12
Deck 4: Engine room
"Where is Kala? He was supposed to be back from patrol two hours ago." Shouted Capt Darleas to the air in general. The great splitter lord had chosen him and his team for this mission and there had been no end of mess ups and set backs. Firstly, one of the snooping humans and his alien companion (Timesplitters don't know or care about experiments) had triggered the door release on the containment doors two days early, releasing the descendants of the infected crew who were locked up in there. He'd lost three squad members securing the ship, and there were still mutants running around. Then there had been the trouble with the salvage crew. He had been forced to kill them but one of them, namely the little green alien, had escaped and ran into the depths of the old crew quarters. Then an unauthorised time jump had been picked up in the vicinity of the captain's quarters, so he had altered Corporal Kala's patrol route so he could check it out and now this. All we had to do was to stop any humans finding out about Project EXP until the ship was dismantled at the Mars facility. At least that human brat isn't here. He thought to himself. "Captain Darleas. We have found Corporal Kala." Said a low-level splitter grunt to the captain. "So? Why bother me about it?" Growled Darleas. The grunt shuddered, much to Darleas's pleasure, and answered "H he was shot, sir."
"Double patrols, and post more guards in the deck 7 labs. Shoot the intruder on sight. Understood?" Ordered Darleas. "I will be on the bridge if you want me. Oh and continue to set the demo charges on the core"
"Yes, sir." Replied the relieved grunt. If he had bothered to look up, his job would have been done much faster.
Deck 8 - 7 air ventilation maintenance vents.
Akira's POV
I couldn't get over what this Matt person had told me. The Timesplitters, the most dangerous alien race the galaxy had ever known, were still alive and were on board the ship disguised as the marines that had accompanied us. They were responsible for what had happened to Rick and My only hope for getting back to Earth alive lay in helping this human named Matt (who could be a Splitter as well for all I knew) find this part for his 'uplink' that he had attached to his wrist. "So, what's time travel like?" I asked him as I slashed down some power cables that blocked the way and ate them.
"Overrated, I thought it would be fun when I got teleported for the first time." He answered. Then he seemed to sag from tiredness and continued, "Then I found out I couldn't go back the way I came and then…" He stopped talking then carried on, "How far to where this lab is?"
I let the subject drop. It was obviously a sore point. I switched my eyes to night vision (all my experiment characters can see in the dark) and carried on through the darkened vent with Matt in tow.
Matt's POV
How dare she ask that question? She actually thinks I'm enjoying myself. She thinks I enjoy having the Timesplitters hunting me down for no reason. I didn't shout or scream at her, she doesn't know what I've been through. Plus, I make a point of not arguing with things that eat live power cables. It was dark in the vent but somehow Akira was crawling through it as if it was floodlit. "How do you do that?" I asked her and nearly had a heart attack when she turned to look at me and I saw that her eyes were glowing red. "Night vision." She answered simply. "Oh… Ok then… what was that?" I said. I had just heard a familiar scuttling sound from in front of us.
Normal POV
Both Matt and Akira slowly peered ahead to see the same koala experiment that had attacked Akira the first time sitting in the middle of the vent. It had its back to them and seemed to be crying. "What's it doing?" Asked Matt. "He's crying." She answered and began to go towards it. "Come back." Matt whispered after her then something occurred to him. "What do you mean, He?" Matt unshouldered his Plasma autorifle and centred the crosshairs on the koala experiment. Matt rather liked Akira's company and wasn't going to watch her get eaten.
"Rick?" asked Akira as she approached her former friend. Rick turned round to face her and said "A…kira? What's going on? And who's the kid with the antique rifle? The last thing I remember is those experiment things running at us. I get my senses back and I've turned into an experiment"
"Oh, that's just Matt, he's harmless…mostly." Answered Akira. "Hey, Matt. Meet Rick."
"That's Rick?" said Matt as He crawled over. "I thought Rick was human. Hey, that's one of the things that…" He stopped as he saw Akira furiously shaking her head behind Rick. "I mean… hi."
Ten minutes later
"Are we there yet?" Asked Matt as the three of them crawled past another notice saying deck 7 R & D and bio-labs. "No." answered Akira.
Thirty seconds later
"Are we there yet?" Asked Matt. "No." answered Rick.
Thirty minutes later and 200 "Are we there yet?" From Matt
"Are we there yet?" Asked Matt. "NO" Yelled Akira and Rick simultaneously as they passed a sign saying deck 7 storage. "Yes, we are. Look at that sign." Said Matt. (Largefish8: I said Matt was a good guy. I didn't say he couldn't be annoying at times)
Rick turned around and pointed at Matt. "Stop saying 'are we there yet?'." He said "It is really annoying. Are you even listening to me?"
It was this point when the crack that Matt been staring at in the vent gave way and caused Matt, Akira and Rick to fall into the laboratory below.
Unfortunately, their fall did not go unnoticed…
Main Bridge. U.S.S Honolulu
"Warning! Intruders detected on deck 7, laboratory 4 storage" said the computer, surprising Captain Darleas and causing him to fall off his seat. Getting up, the now angry timesplitter captain brought up the security cameras for laboratory 4 and saw Akira and Rick lying on the floor among the wreckage of the vent that they had fallen out of. All that he could see of Matt was a pair of feet that were poking out from behind a work top. He ran to an intercom and activated it. "All personnel converge on deck 7 lab 4. Eliminate all intruders." As his men rushed to carry out his orders, his comms device beeped. "This is Captain Darleas" he said and yelped. On his comm was the face of the splitter lord. "Why are you still on board the Honolulu? You should have scuttled it and be back by now." Said the face of the cyborg. "I am just dealing with some loose ends, sir." Answered Darleas. "There is no trouble."
There is more trouble then you think. The traveller is on board. He must not find out about the Project." Said the splitter lord, curtly. "You are out of time, set the charges and don't let him escape."
End of Chapter one
When the timesplitter characters are the only ones talking I will write them in English.
'Smeg' is meant to be a splitter version of the f-word that my character Matt picked up.
The U.S.S Honolulu looks like the earth ships from the film 'Starship Troopers'.
That's it. The first chapter of the prologue is finished
Please read & review! This is my first fanfic so no flames, please
Does anyone know that 'under hiatus' means?
These are all my ideas (mostly caused by playing Timesplitters and resident evil until one in the morning). All similarities to any other author's works are purely accidental.